[PEN-L:7683] Re: M-L-MST

[Terrence Mc Donough <TERRENCE.MCDONOUGH@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Date:          Fri, 04 Jun 1999 13:21:27 +0000 (GMT)
> From:          Terrence Mc Donough <TERRENCE.MCDONOUGH@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject:       [PEN-L:7682] Re: Leninism
> To:            pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Reply-to:      pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Organization:  National University of Ireland, Galway
> Priority:      normal

>
>
> > On point (1) - we're a long way from the Hilferdingesque world that Lenin
> > wrote and thought about. Competition has intensified, finance and industry
> > haven't joined into a single unit (bank-supervised cartels), etc. So while
> > 1917 was different from 1817, 1999 is pretty different from 1917, too. On
> > point
>
> My only point here is that Lenin made a substantial contribution to
> the Marxian theory of capitalist stages, not that we are currently
> confronting the same stage which confronted Lenin.
>
> (2) - I think Soviet history confirmed that changing the folks at the
> > helm is not without its problems, and that there was substantial continuity
> > between Tsarist and Soviet Russia. If anything, that's an argument against
> > Leninism's relevance today.
>
> Again my point was that Lenin made a substantial theoretical
> contribution to the Marxist theory of the state.
>
>  And (3), well, any nominees for the vanugard
> > party today? The Spartacist League? Again, I think you've got to confront
> > the fact that organizations and strategies appropriate for a Tsarist police
> > state don't have much relevance to an OECD country today.
>
> I might well call for nominees for a serious mass socialist party of
> the people.  The SP? DSA?  Obviously conditions are not right for
> either a vanguard or a mass socialist party today.
>
> I don't call myself a Leninist because Marxism-Leninism was
> essentially a dogmatic ossification of Marxism promoted by Stalin
> with if not evil then unscientific intent and Leninism doesn't
> supercede Marxism unmodified.
>
> Nevertheless, if one accepts a stage theory of capitalism, a
> structural theory of the bourgeois state, and the likelihood that at
> some stage in the revolutionary transition to socialism a vanguard
> party will be needed, then one would be justified in calling oneself
> a Leninist.  Such a person would be no more worthy of dismissal as
> irrelevant than any of the rest of us.
>
> Anti sectarians should be extra careful not to dismiss others in a/n
> (anti)sectarian fashion [to use pomo parentheticals].  After all,
> things turn into their opposites :] (Mao reading Marx reading Hegel).
>
> Terry McDonough
>
Max, your tortured conflation of the leading and lower organs
of the party sits well with your pathetic boasting about your
bucks salary.

Menshevik insect!

Terry McDonough